


You Keep Me Up All Night

by theleftnippleofchrom



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: M/M, Self-indulgent fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 05:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6643309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleftnippleofchrom/pseuds/theleftnippleofchrom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chrom can't sleep. Gaius tries to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Keep Me Up All Night

Blinking, Chrom opened his eyes to the taunt of his alarm clock. 

_4:18am._ The threads of last night’s fleeting dream were already slipping away, leaving him with a sort of residual discomfort.

For about a week now, Chrom had been having this intense recurring dream, something vaguely medieval where he was in charge of an army. _What a ridiculous premise._ Chrom had his hands full running a tiny bakery out in the Ylissean suburbs. _Still… it felt so real._ These sorts of dreams always managed to shake Chrom’s mood for the rest of the morning, clinging to his mind like brambles.

Sighing, Chrom swung his legs off of the bed. If he was going to be subconsciously worrying about assassins and battles, he might as well do it over some cereal. Taking care not to disturb the small lump on the other side of the bed, he padded down the hallway and into the kitchen. 

It was almost criminal, being awake this early on a Saturday. Even the dim light inside the fridge made Chrom’s head throb. Fumbling for the milk, Chrom nearly knocked over a precarious stack of tupperware containing strange chocolaty experiments. As he shut the door on the menacing fridge light, Chrom decided that they really needed to reorganize the layout of the refrigerator. 

Turning away from the counter, Chrom fished into the open dishwasher to grab a spoon. He frowned as his hands met the utensil’s metal surface. How anything could come out of the dishwasher sticky was beyond him. Unless… _someone_ had forgotten to run the machine. 

Then, almost as if his thoughts had been telepathically conveyed, Chrom felt warm arms encircle his waist. A head pressed into his upper back, followed by a sleepy: “hey, Blue... dreams got you up again?” 

“Gaius… I hope I didn’t wake you.” Chrom leaned back slightly into his boyfriend’s embrace, body heating up as a soft cheek nuzzled into his shoulder blades. It was a gesture of _no, you didn’t,_ or maybe _don’t worry about it._ Gaius sometimes kept odd hours of his own volition, but Chrom still felt vaguely guilty whenever he suspected his insomnia was the cause. 

Still, there was no sense dwelling on it. “I was just getting some cereal…Speaking of which, did you run the dishwasher last night?” 

After a muffled “oh, shit—” Chrom turned around exasperatedly, only to be met with his boyfriend’s playful smirk. “Of course, I ran it. What’s the matter?”

Chrom held up the offending spoon, too tired to try to mask his unimpressed expression. Gaius emitted an _ahh_ of recognition, and inexplicably gave the spoon a tentative lick. Then, he looked up triumphantly.

“Yesssss. It worked!” 

Chrom should have known it would be something like this, that the spoon had become a casualty in one of Gaius’ so-called experiments. Gaius was constantly messing with cake recipes or combining chocolate with innocent dinner entrees. He swore that the concoctions were for the bakery, but Chrom had yet to see anything that he could actually sell to customers. They were always too sweet, or too messy, or too… inappropriately shaped. Plus, half of the time, Gaius just ate the results immediately. 

Truth be told, he normally thought the whole thing was adorable. Gaius was good enough at managing the bakery inventory that they could afford to mess around a bit. Life with Gaius was waking up to the smell of cookies and taste-testing fruit tarts and finding weird little jars of chocolate sauce all over the house. Nine times out of ten, Chrom loved it more than anything else. 

But right now, it was 4:30am and he wanted his damn cereal. 

“What did you do to my spoon, Gaius?” 

For a second, the ginger-haired man adopted an innocent expression. Upon seeing Chrom’s raised eyebrow, however, he decided playing dumb was useless. 

“It’s just an experiment—I wanted to see if I could make a waterproof lollipop. And hey! It worked!” Gaius wrapped Chrom in his arms again, his fingers drumming out a rhythm on the taller man’s hips. “Want a taste?” 

The tone of the question was deceptively neutral, but Chrom could see past his wide eyes and put-upon innocence. It was pretty common for Gaius to try to slip out of a sticky situation by playing tricks like this. Just because his flirty ruse usually worked on Chrom didn’t mean Chrom was clueless.

Pretending to think it over, Chrom hummed to himself. “You know, it sounds tempting… but I’m kind of in the mood for corn flakes.” 

Gaius broke out of the embrace, his mouth open in mock offense. “You’d turn down my culinary masterpiece for some soggy cardboard cereal?”

Before he could respond, Chrom’s stomach gurgled, which settled the matter. Still, Chrom was an indulgent boyfriend. “Why don’t I get you a bowl of Lucky Charms? I’ll let you pick all of the marshmallows out like you do when you think I’m not looking.” One corner of his mouth twitched up as Gaius looked affronted.

“…I don’t do that,” Gaius protested, looking Chrom directly in the eyes. “The supermarket just sometimes sells us crappy boxes with no marshmallows.” 

Gaius was a pretty good liar, but Chrom had seen him come to breakfast on multiple occasions with a bowl of nothing but rainbow marshmallow pieces. That was the sweet, genuine thing; Gaius never lied to Chrom when it mattered, only when it was obvious they both knew the truth. 

Chrom chuckled under his breath. “I don’t care. You’re the only one that eats them.” Sitting down at the table, he poured himself a bowl of cornflakes and tried to ignore Gaius’ complaints about _that tasteless shit._

As they sat side-by-side, munching quietly, Chrom scrunched up his eyebrows. “Are you going to crash in ten minutes from all this sugar?”

“Please, Blue. I’ve built up a pretty high tolerance. Give me a little bit of credit.” Then, Gaius looked off to the side, shadily. “Actually… yeah. I crash all the time. You’re gonna need to keep me awake.” With a wink, he wolfed down the rest of his marshmallows and went to rinse the bowl in the sink.

Chrom made a noise of protest, mouth still stuffed with his last bite of cornflakes. Leaving his bowl behind on the table, he scooped the redhead up into his arms. Gaius let out a low, contented hum as he reached his arms to clasp around Chrom’s neck. 

The two made their way to the bedroom, Chrom nearly stumbling when Gaius started to press feather-light kisses to his collarbone.

“Hey, don’t drop me, you big dork—aah!” Gaius’ complaint was cut short as Chrom dumped him unceremoniously onto the bed. Winded, the redhead propped himself up on his elbows. “You want it rough tonight?”

Chrom moved to trap Gaius on the bed beneath his limbs, rolling his eyes. “If you’re going to be a pest, I might just go back to sleep.” 

It was obvious from Chrom’s flushed expression that he was full of it, but Gaius decided not to call him out on it. Instead, he stuck out his bottom lip in a pout, which Chrom quickly captured with his teeth. As Chrom lightly nibbled at his mouth, Gaius arched up beneath him, reaching up one hand to thumb the back of Chrom’s neck. Encouraged, Chrom lifted one of Gaius’ legs to wrap around his waist. 

Suddenly, Gaius broke the kiss, distracted. “Wait, hold on, my feet are cold. Where’d my socks go?”

Chrom’s only response was desperate panting. _Useless. Hot, but useless._ Gaius rolled out from underneath him and began rummaging under the bedcovers. Chrom never bothered to wear socks to bed, but Gaius always ran a little cold. They’d started keeping a second blanket around because he would sometimes steal the covers in his sleep, rolling himself up into a warm little burrito.

As he blindly moved his hands around under the sheets, Gaius could feel Chrom flop down at his side, nose pressing lazily against Gaius’ neck.

After finally finding the socks—and a stray jolly rancher—Gaius turned onto his back. Just to be a tease, he began inching them onto his feet as slowly as possible. Normally, this was when Chrom would growl and pin Gaius’ shoulders to the bed. But this time, there was no reaction from the other side of the bed. Disappointed, Gaius looked to the left. 

“Blue?” 

Chrom was lying on his stomach, eyes closed. Gaius gave his cheek an experimental poke, and Chrom opened his mouth robotically. 

Sure, Gaius always felt better when he knew Chrom was able to go back to sleep… but his own heartbeat was still racing, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t the marshmallows. 

Chrom started to snore. Gaius stared up at the ceiling, mouth dry and wide awake.

 _5:00am,_ the clock taunted.

_Fuck._

**Author's Note:**

> i started this ficlet nine months ago. i hope it has fulfilled at least some of your insomniac domestic chromgai needs.


End file.
